


Grab a Pen, I'll Make a List

by simkhalou



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 22:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6302647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simkhalou/pseuds/simkhalou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tag for episode 6x17, Waiwai. </p>
<p>Danny and Kono talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grab a Pen, I'll Make a List

“Should we even be drinking?” Kono asked, frowning at the empty shot glass in her hand before she set it down on the counter. “We probably shouldn't be drinking after getting gassed with— what did you say that was?”

She looked over to Steve expectantly.

“Fentanyl,” he answered dully, not lifting his eyes from the beer bottle in front of him. Danny bit the inside of his bottom lip at the miserable sight.

“Oh, we should definitely be drinking,” he grumbled and downed his own shot of tequila. Steve could drown in his misery if he wanted but Danny was going to drown in alcohol tonight instead, chase oblivion — even if it landed him in the hospital. Anything to forget reality for just a little while.

Kono shot him a skeptical look that he simply answered with a shrug. This had been her idea, after all. She had dragged Steve from his office, begging him to go out for a few drinks with her because her husband was in prison and she was oh so lonely. It was transparent and lacking any kind of subtlety but it had worked. She had managed to wrangle Steve away from his computer and the futile quest of finding any more info on whatever Catherine was up to. And Danny was ridiculously grateful for that. There was plenty of time to play that game in the morning.

But Steve still managed to be a stubborn ass about all this. He refused to engage in the tequila drinking and kept nursing that one sad bottle of beer. Like Danny didn't know that he was thinking about going back to the office after this.

Stupid, stubborn ass.

Steve's phone dinged with a text message then, and Danny almost flinched at the small sound.

What now, he wondered darkly. How could this horror show of a day still get worse?

Reading the message, Steve sighed. “Denning wants to see me,” he said, already getting up from his seat. The way he moved, tired and weary, made Danny want to reach out and hold on to him and stop him from leaving. Because, fuck. Steve didn't need this now. He so didn't. But sure, everyone, just keep adding to the fucking heap.

“What, now?” Kono asked, an unhappy frown creasing her brows.

Steve just shrugged, resigned. “I'll see you tomorrow,” he said and left and Danny resisted the urge to just smash his heavy head down onto the counter. There was no doubt in his mind about what this call to the principal's office was all about and, just— no. Steve didn't need a lecture now.

Kono sighed, rolling her eyes. Then she reached for Steve's only half empty beer bottle and took a long swig from it.

Danny signaled the bartender for more tequila.

“So,” Kono said after a beat. “There's this rumor I heard.”

Danny looked at her as she pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows expectantly. He shook his head. “I don't think I have the mental capacity for gossip right now.”

Kono set the bottle down slowly. Her expression was serious. “Steve,” she said. “Did he put a bullet into Larionov's shoulder at the hospital to get him to talk, to give us the location?”

Danny narrowed his eyes at her. “I wasn't in the room,” he answered evasively.

“You weren't in the room?” Kono gaped at him incredulously. “What the fuck, Danny? You let him go in there alone?” she hissed.

Surprised by the anger in her voice, Danny pulled back a little, lifting his shoulders in a defensive shrug. “I— Yes, I did.”

“Why?” she demanded.

“Why? Because I'm not an idiot. I'm not gettin' in between Godzilla and Tokyo,” Danny argued. “And you know Steve, you know how he gets. He's— he gets worse than fucking Godzilla. This guy was the one thing standing between him and knowing that Catherine's safe. I'm not gettin' in the middle of all that.”

Kono huffed out an unsatisfied breath. She averted her gaze to the bottle on the counter in front of her and shook her head slowly. “It's not right. What he did.”

“I know that,” Danny told her. It came out harsher than he intended. “And I also know that I'm letting him take a shit all over the guy's basic human rights with a stunt like that, but—”

“But?” Kono cut in. Her sharp, demanding tone made Danny snap his mouth shut. Whatever he was going to say suddenly felt inadequate.

“What?” Kono asked. “He gets a pass because of Catherine?”

Danny sighed, not really sure what to tell her. “He's done this kind of shit before,” he offered lamely.

“Don't,” Kono hissed. “Don't do that. Don't trivialize what he did. Under any different circumstances you would call it torture, because that's what it was. That's what he did.”

Danny started at her, pretended he didn't see the flicker of hurt in her eyes.

“What I let him do,” he added flatly after a beat and then shot her an apologetic look. She had come too close and intimate with the subject of torture just a few months ago and he didn't mean to disrespect her or belittle what she'd been through.

“Why, Danny?” Kono asked. “Why did you just let him?”

A hollow laugh huffed up from his lungs, surprising Danny. “Because— because can you imagine what a fucking shit show of a disaster it would have been if we hadn't recovered the information? If Catherine had been compromised? Cause I don't. I don't wanna even go there now.” He shuddered at the mere thought.

It wasn't a justification. It didn't make what Steve had done okay. But if Catherine had been compromised then Steve would have done so much more and so much worse than put a bullet into a defenseless asshole. “I hate this. I hate this so much. All the secrets and the spy shit, the CIA and NSA and all of them. All this is their fault, anyway. I mean, what the fuck? What was that, telling him she's in the Ukraine in the first place? They never tell him anything about his own mother and now this? What— what is the thought process that went into that decision, huh? Were they trying to make him go over there and search for her on his own? Because that's— that's not like a wild fantasy. That's what he would have done if we hadn't recovered the information.”

Danny blew out a frustrated breath, because hey, déjà vu. Hadn't they already been here before?

“It's Afghanistan all over again and I can't do it,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I can't. I can't sit around and watch him like that again. Who knows how long it's gonna take until the NSA decides they feel generous enough to let him know that she's okay? Like, I just can't. I can't.”

The bartender chose that moment to finally bring the ordered shot. Danny immediately grabbed one glass and downed the tequila, too caught up in his frustration to fully registering the burn at the back of his throat.

“Danny—” Kono started but then just heaved a sigh.

Danny didn't blame her for not knowing what to say about this whole fucked-up mess.

“I should— You know what I should do?” he continued. “I should take all the vacation time I got and just high tail out of here and not come back until this blows over again. Because I can't do this again. I can't watch him agonize over her safety for weeks and months on end. That's my self-preservation instinct screaming at me to get the fuck out. But you know what I do?”

Kono just looked at him with oddly pitying eyes.

“I ignore it. I ignore the screaming because I can't do that to him. I can't. Because everyone's shitting on him all the time and it's not fair. It's not fair.”

Kono remained silent. She frowned, first concerned, then thoughtful. Danny grabbed the second shot of tequila and drank that one, too, wishing he could just shut his runaway mouth and shut off his brain and just drown in oblivion already because life, his life, Steve's life, all of it was just a little too depressing right now.

“How long do you think has this been going on?” Kono asked suddenly.

Setting down the glass next to the others, Danny glanced at her, not sure what she was talking about.

“The spy stuff?” she clarified.

He shrugged. “I don't know,” he muttered, looking longingly down at the empty glasses in front of him. “How does one even get involved with this shit?”

“I'm just, you know, wondering,” Kono said. She paused, raising an eyebrow at him, obviously waiting for Danny to just telepathically know what exactly she was trying to say. What the hell?

Rolling her eyes at him, she added, “How much was real with her and how much just— a cover.”

Oh, shit, Danny hadn't even thought about that. The possibility that Catherine was maybe not even who they thought she was.

Feeling overwhelmingly tired all of a sudden, he closed his eyes with a sigh. He sagged forward in his chair a little and propped himself up on his arms on the counter. “You know, I didn't need that pointed out to me,” he muttered. All of this was so fucking exhausting. “That— That all of it could have been a lie.”

Kono frowned thoughtfully, then slowly shook her head. “I don't think that.”

“I don't know what to think anymore,” Danny lamented, wondering if Steve was asking himself that same question right now. Like he hadn't dealt with enough betrayal and duplicity in his life? Especially from the people who were supposed to treat him better than that?

“How is Steve supposed to deal with all this?” Danny asked. “This is Doris all over again, just in a whole different depressing way. And it's Afghanistan all over again, too, and— I'm just so tired of this constant, repetitive cycle of _fuck_. And I'm just, you know— I'm just sittin' on the sidelines, watching. Steve, he's smack in the middle of all this and—”

Danny paused and huffed out a breath as he thought back to his brief conversation with Steve after they had secured the flash drive with the stolen intel. “I mean, he's so— I can just tell that he's just so done with all this. I asked him if he was angry at her for lying, because that'd be a normal reaction, right? _I'm_ angry and this isn't even about me. And he said yes, he said he was angry, because he knows that that's the normal reaction and he knows that's what's expected from him. And maybe he really is angry, who knows. Maybe he's angry at her or at himself, it doesn't matter. Because the way he said it— it was like— like he was laughing at himself. Because he finally got the joke. He _finally_ got the joke people have been telling him all his life. He finally got it. Finally understood that no one gives a shit if he gets angry at them for lying. There's no point. It's just a waste of energy and he knows that because they're not around. They're never around for the fallout. Not Doris, not Joe, and now Catherine. They all fuck him over and then disappear and it just doesn't matter if he gets angry at them, because they're just not around for it.

“What's the point if you can't yell and scream at someone? What's the point?

“So what does he do? He goes on to say that he gets it. Given the circumstances, he would have done the same. Like, are you _kidding_ me? Given the circumstances? He doesn't even know what the goddamn circumstances are? He has no idea what's going on but he just wants to understand and he wants to be okay with it all and he wants that pointless anger to go away because— because that poor bastard is still in love with that woman. He's still in love with her.

“And I just wanna tell him that that's okay, you know? She's doing all this crap and maybe she has good reasons for it, but it's hurting him and he still loves her and probably feels like the world's biggest idiot for it and I just— I wanna tell him that it's okay. It's okay to love her. You didn't choose this. It doesn't make you stupid or weak that you can't just stop loving her.

“And then I wanna skip to the end. The part where she comes back and he gets another five minutes of happiness. Because I can't do this again. I can't watch him worry about her and watch him pretend that he's over her at the same time. That's— That's such bullshit and I can't do it again.”

Tired, empty, Danny folded his hands on the counter in front of him and dropped his forehead on top of them. He was just so _done_ with all this.

Kono gently put a hand on his back, smoothed it up and down a few times soothingly. “But you'll do it anyway,” she said quietly.

Danny huffed out a breath before he sat up again. “Yes. I will,” he said. Looking into Kono's dark eyes, it felt like he was making a promise. Then he sighed and ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. “I will, because what the hell else am I supposed to do? I'm not gonna be like them and leave. I'm not. I couldn't do that, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.”

“So you're gonna do what instead?” Kono asked. She pulled her hand from his back and cocked her head to the side, looking at him expectantly.

Danny shrugged, squirmed a little at the way her gaze weighed uncomfortably on his skin.

“All this shit, it's killing him and that's awful,” Kono said. “It hurts to watch. I get that. I'm right there with you,” she promised. “But Danny— Don't let it get to you, too. I know you want to help, I know you want to fix everything for him, but you can't sacrifice yourself in the process.”

“I'm not—“ he started to protest.

“I know. Not yet,” she agreed gently. “But think about where this is going. Think about what you're doing. You're not that guy, Danny. You're not the guy who stands outside the door while he puts a bullet into someone to get information. You don't just let him do something like this. Not if there isn't a really good reason for it.”

“I know,” Danny sighed. He knew she had a point. Getting the location of Anna Novick, recovering the stolen data to make sure Catherine and other operatives didn't get compromised had been important. But had the ends really justified the means here? How important or potent had the information on that flash drive really been? The NSA hadn't seemed to really give a shit about it even though the data breach at Sillex Labs had been their mess and— shit, had Five-0 been played here? Had Brenner told Steve about Catherine's situation just to manipulate him into doing the dirty work for the NSA?

Danny clenched his hands to fist with the urgent need to punch someone.

“And if there is a good reason then you're in that room with him,” Kono said next to him.

“I know,” Danny answered absently, still reeling from the realization.

Kono blew out a breath unhappily. “I mean it, Danny,” she scolded, pulling his focus back to the conversation. “You gotta call Steve on his shit. You can't let him get away with stuff like this, even when it's about Catherine. It's a slippery slope.” she insisted.

Danny nodded. She was right. Of course, she was right. Steve sometimes got too caught up in his head, in his _mission_. And when that happened, he needed Danny to get into his face and at least make him question and reexamine what the hell he was doing. He needed his partner in those situations. And today, Danny just hadn't shown up for him. He just hadn't. He had kept his mouth shut instead just to cut Steve a break, spare him that one argument, that one confrontation. And by doing that, Danny had inadvertently betrayed him, their partnership and friendship, in the process.

Screw it all to hell. He just wanted to lay his head down on the counter and sleep.

“Danny, you gotta take care of yourself,” Kono said softly. “Put yourself first. And when it gets too much, when you feel like you need a break and that you can't do it anymore, then you have to take a step back and let someone else take over for a little while. There are enough people around to do it.”

Danny frowned, considered her words for a long moment. Kono just looked back at him with confident determination. “You got broad shoulders, Danny,” she said. “But even you can't carry all his shit for him. Let us help.”

He nodded slowly. Her words made a lot of sense. Today had proved that she was right, that he had reached a point where he couldn't just keep doing this. Because he wasn't doing it right. He needed to take a moment, to breathe and then examine the situation and figure out how to really help Steve.

But what Kono suggested still went against any instinct in his body.

“I'm not saying you can't be here for him,” she added knowingly. “Just take a break. Take a day to do something fun with the kids or whatever.”

Danny sighed. “You're honestly telling me to take a vacation from my best friend's life? While said life just got fucked over. _Again_.”

“Yes,” she confirmed definitively. “My husband's in prison so I got plenty of time to keep an eye on him in the meantime. And I'm not alone.”

Shaking his head, Danny signaled the bartender for another round. “I'll think about it,” he said, not ready to fully commit to anything just yet.

“Fair enough,” Kono agreed, patting his shoulder gently.

  
  


**The End**

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a state of immense frustration. Sorry for any and all typos!


End file.
